Tropical Audubon Society

South Florida’s Voice of Conservation

My son Philip and I are still adding birds to our June Challenge list as well as the combined Miami/Dade County list. Yesterday we took the boat out to try and catch dinner and add more birds to our June Challenge list. We did great on the birds but not so good on the fish. Here is a list of what we saw yesterday, I put up some photos including a cool spinx moth species seen on Adams Key.

Cory's Shearwater only one.
GREAT SHEARWATER, I believe a first for the challenge for Miami/Dade.
Audubon's Shearwater, we had about 8.
Bridled Tern, about 15.
Sooty Tern, about 20
Magnificent Frigatebird, quite a few.

We had a white tern that was not a Royal Tern that some how disappeared from us when we tried to chase it, perhaps a Sandwich Tern. We also had a shearwater species give us the slip as it cut through the waves. My best guess was a Sooty Shearwater, if only it had not been in bad lighting. We did try to chase it, but it is not easy on a small boat when it is choppy.

It was a nice day on the water, most of the birds were close in at about 130 feet. We actually travelled out to beyond 700 feet of water but only had some frigatebirds and Sooty Terns out there. The three shearwaters were the new birds for our list as well as the combined Miami/Dade County list.

Larry & Philip Manfredi